A significant building block to the construction of the 2013 and 2014 National League West champion Dodgers can be traced back to the 2008 First-Year Player Draft.

Interestingly, only one player who was selected that year by the Dodgers has made an impact on both division championship teams by playing in games for the Dodgers — Dee Gordon. However, the success of a draft isn’t always measured by how many guys make an impact with the team they were drafted by, but how a team utilizes those pieces.

“The one thing we’ve done a really good job of is we still manage to do a really good job of keeping our key players — like out of that draft we kept Dee Gordon,” said Dodger vice president of amateur scouting Logan White. “I look at it like this — for Ned (Colletti) to have the ammo of having players to be able to utilize in trades is huge. You can take on money, but teams still need to get a player or get something in return.”

The baseball worlds of Dodger executives Logan White and Janet Marie Smith collided in a chance encounter Monday afternoon, more than two decades and 2,000 miles from their first meeting. As vice president of amateur scouting, White was escorting first-round draft selection Grant Holmes and his family into Tommy Lasorda’s office, which is located next to the conference room used by Smith, the senior VP of planning and development overseeing the upgrades and enhancements to Dodger Stadium.

Each room looked like a crowded phone booth. Lasorda’s office is filled with framed photos, trophies and other mementos from six decades in professional baseball. Smith’s conference room contained an assortment of Dodger-related metal signs and memorabilia piled on a table, along with various modern-day blueprints and designs. The vintage signs are being placed this week at various locations inside the stadium, bringing color and history to areas otherwise devoid of artwork.

When introduced to Smith’s group of staff and consultants, White recalled hearing about grand plans for Baltimore’s new ballpark.

“Actually, I met Janet Marie when I was in Baltimore as a scout,” he said. “We took a bus to a location with a pile of dirt and a home plate. She explained to us how there was going to be a new ballpark, pointing to an old warehouse and saying it was going to be part of the ballpark’s landscape. We got back on that bus and thought it was a crazy idea to keep an old building.”

Smith worked for the Orioles from 1989-94 during the design and construction of Oriole Park at Camden Yards, which opened in 1992 and became the standard-bearer for the subsequent wave of traditional ballparks. Blending the urban context with inspiration from parks built in the early 20th century, the ballpark was built on land that was a former rail yard for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad’s Camden Station. The B&O Warehouse now stands behind the right field wall.

“There was a time I thought I might like to get into architecture,” White told Smith, who before joining the Dodgers in 2012 coordinated the design of Atlanta’s Turner Field and the renovation of Boston’s Fenway Park. “But there’s no way I could be as creative as your projects. What you did at Dodger Stadium is amazing. I never thought you could dig underneath and build the new clubhouses and other rooms.”

(Photo: Vintage signs newly on display on the Executive Club Level at Dodger Stadium)

“We feel fortunate to have gotten the player of Grant’s magnitude at pick 22,” White said. ““He’s a mature, young and strong-bodied pitcher who throws hard and has a great breaking ball, but what separates him is he is a fierce competitor.”

When 2014 began, the Dodgers didn’t necessarily expect that Holmes would last as long in the draft as he did.

“If you look going into the season at most of the early season publications, he was ranked to go in the first 10 picks,” White said. “He certainly has that type of stuff to have been considered there. I think that the way the draft played out, it worked in our favor that you have a rash of Tommy John injuries, and sometimes people get a little squeamish with right-handed pitchers, and I think that may have added to it. But I don’t think there’s any question that he’s a mature physical player. He has now stuff – it’s not like we’re taking a player that’s projecting out. He’s got the now stuff.

“The sentiment from myself and all of our scouts, we feel we have an upgrade for the 22nd pick.”

White also noted that Holmes’ ability at the plate (.494 on-base percentage his senior year) followed in the tradition of such current Dodger pitchers as Zack Greinke, Clayton Kershaw and Chad Billingsley, and that bodes well.

“I think the thing all of us note with him, he’s a terrific competitor and a really impressive athlete,” White said.

Dodgers VP of amateur scouting Logan White in the draft war room in 2013.

By Cary Osborne

This is the home stretch, and it doesn’t necessarily take place at home.

Dodger vice president of amateur scouting Logan White spent much of the last week leading up to the 2014 Major League Baseball First-Year Draft in airplanes, rental cars, on high school and collegiate baseball fields and in meeting rooms in final preparations for the three-day, 40-round event, which begins Thursday.

Prior to catching a plane, White took a breath and sat down to talk this year’s draft, strategies and thoughts with Dodger Insider. With as much media attention as the draft gets (thanks to the proliferation of blogs, mock drafts and television coverage than years past), many feel they have a read on what teams will do. However, White said he does a good job of maintaining secrecy.

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